


Our Smallest Adventures

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, First Time, Pre-Canon, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-23
Updated: 2011-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-18 15:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/190549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>he wonders why he decided to start playing with the neighbour - it might just be the death of him</i>. Rory and Amy navigate love, sex and teenage angst together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Smallest Adventures

  
**the kids don't stand a chance**

He doesn't look like much and he cuts his knee falling from a swing (and really they are too old to be playing around swings except that they are fundamental as props in this situation) when he was supposed to be saving her from space pirates.

Amy can see his eyes water as he rubs his leg in pain, hands dirty with blood and gravel.

`You can't cry. The Doctor wouldn't cry.´

He is too old to cry – he is old enough to start swearing so he decides it's because it bloody well hurts and not because he is a crybaby – and he is too old to be playing this kind of games; he should be with his mates playing football, that's what people do. And she – she is too old to be making this sort of stuff up.

He was being Amy's imaginary friend until a moment ago, now he is just Rory Williams, twelve-years old and wondering why he decided to start playing with the neighbour. It might just be the death of him.

(It will. Literally. But that's not until many years later.)

*

 **school uniforms**

The bus ride to school is torture when they turn fourteen and her uniform skirt seems so short – all her skirts really seem too short, you know. And Rory (all hair and bones and growing in awkward places) can't, won't stop staring at her wild-child knees.

She notices.

`Oh please,´ she sighs and kicks him on the shin, making him whine like a little girl and all the other kids in the bus turn around (Amy always sits in the back, slouched in a mock bad-girl pose) and laugh at Rory.

*

 **the law of averages said that I was going to get my heart broken**

The first time she kisses him they are shopping for Christmas dinner at Tesco –

(not the first time, technically; there had been pecks on the cheek and chaste closed-mouth kisses when they were younger, when they were playing, but Rory knew those kisses weren't for him, he knew Amy was kissing her imaginary friend

but now she is kissing him)

– and it is Christmas' Eve because Amy and her aunt have left everything to the last minute and Rory had to buy dessert for his family's dinner so they came to town to sort that out and yeah, Amy could come later and hang out and eat Tesco Finest chocolate mousse if she wants to.

So they are shopping and examining expiration dates and cooking times on the labels. They are not doing anything special: Amy is peeking over his shoulder, taller than Rory, while Rory wonders at what temperature the oven in her house can cook this stuff. The store is quite busy – many people do things last minute, apparently – so they move a bit to unblock the ready meals aisle while they decide.

Amy leans into him and kisses his ear.

`What –?´

He doesn't have time to reflect on why would Amy Pond be kissing his ear in a supermarket on Christmas' Eve. She grabs him by the collar (his arms go slack but hopefully he is still hanging on to the basket with the half-turkey) and kisses him properly. Her face is all warm and soft and weird pressed against him. She is a bit too forceful, copying what she has seen in movies and in older girls in parties. Rory's eyes go very wide when, for a moment, her tongue slips into his mouth.

`What was that for?!´

Amy readjusts a lock of her hair, tucks it behind her ear and looks around, checking if they are causing a scene. Nobody pays any attention. They just assume they are boyfriend and girlfriend hanging out at Christmas. Rory thinks _All riiiiiiiiiight_.

`Nothing,´ she says, taking the basket from his hand. `Just felt like it.´

Yeah, that sounds like his best friend, is what Rory is thinking. Not that he is complaining – it was a good kiss, well, he doesn't have anything to compare it to, really, but it was good.

`Oh.´

`Hey, don't get weird,´ she warns him, and they keep on shopping, and they never bring it up again.

*

 **thick as thieves**

Amy is precocious and that starts a few rumours, most of which are not true.

She makes out with Danny Campbell behind the shed of Emmy Harris' house during a party and fifteen minutes after Danny boasted in front of all his friends (and anyone within shouting distance) saying that she'd let him finger her.

She sits under the withered fig tree of Emmy Harris' garden and hugs her legs, ears ringing with what everybody in class will be saying about her come Monday.

`I'm going to run away,´ she tells Rory, who's come out, half-failed attempts at chatting up girls and still believing that he will die of drunken stupor if he drinks more than one beer, and followed Amy like he always does.

She doesn't mind his presence because he is not one of _them_ , she understands (has always understood) that Rory could never be part of a world that hurts her. Rory is hers.

`I can't show my face any more,´ she decides.

She doesn't expect Rory to comment.

`I'm not a slut!´

There's loud music coming from the house – the door ajar, they can half-see figures dancing, badly – but it's not enough to drown Amy's voice.

`I know,´ Rory says, also louder and more desperate than was his intention.

He is really completely serious with that really completely serious face that he makes sometimes and that Amy finds hilarious and even now she does and so she laughs and Rory doesn't understand and she ducks some invisible paper plane and takes the half-full can of Coors from his hand and takes a long sip, thinking “this boy is going to be my best friend forever”.

`If my reputation is completely ruined,´ she teases, one knee against his leg, `Would you take pity on me and make me an honest woman?´

He knows she is kidding of course (she is not, not entirely; she is caught up in the moment, thinking _Amy and Rory against the world_ in a daze), rationally Rory knows this but Rory is fifteen and in love and beginning to articulate – though only to himself for now – the depth of that feeling, that first love, so that question, that _joke_ , it makes his heart jump to his throat.

`Of- of course. I will.´

`Promise. Don't bail out on me, Rory Williams.´

`No.´

She hugs him. Maybe she is a bit drunk. And a bit sad. And if people were to come outside and see them, arms around each other under the stupid, ugly, dead fig tree, well, it wouldn't do much for Amy's reputation, would it. She doesn't care. Rory's shoulder feels so nice against her cheek.

*

 **giving up on love**

Her aunt disappears on her – just like that, from one day to the other, but Amy is seventeen and too old to be an orphan so she just keeps going as if nothing happens. Except she spends a lot of time at Rory's, a lot of time at Rory's parents' house, a lot of time in his kitchen, doing homework, and in his bedroom, pretending to do homework but actually listening to music and smoking and gossiping and she puts on clothes and Rory protests at being treated “ _like a girlfriend_ ”.

They are seventeen and Rory's family goes on Bank Holiday vacation while he studies for his exams ( _and you should too_ but oh well) and Amy uses that excuse – studying together – to hang around the whole weekend, that's all right because Rory's parents trust her (they _trust him_ is more like it) so it's all right when she just packs a bag and invades every room in the house and uses Rory's towels and lies on his couch half-naked wearing a t-shirt and shorts and she drags him to the supermarket (she is wearing sandals and she locks her arm with Rory's and people look at them, at their youth, disapprovingly) and they buy all sorts of unhealthy foods – because Amy knows how to cook, but only things that are bad for you, only survival-like things, from tin cans, and frozen things and things one could deep-fry. Much better is a family-sized bag of Walkers and cans of Coke and Red Bull (to top the bottle of vodka Amy spotted hidden in the Williams household's tallest cupboard, _oh heads will roll_ ). Supper is Pop Tarts and _Holby City_.

They make plans to watch _SpongeBob_ in the morning.

They don't make plans to have sex that night – or if Amy made them she doesn't let on, and Rory doesn't make plans, he hopes or fantasizes but he doesn't make plans.

It's a mess – Amy has more experience but still somehow limited – and she laughs a lot and Rory's face gets so red, but it's nice, his warm cheeks against her palms when she holds his head like it's something very precious and she looks at him a long time, like she is trying to memorize him (in case she ever forgets), before she kisses him. Afterwards they hide under his sheets like they used to do when they were kids – before they became too old and too much like _a boy and a girl_ for sleepovers – foreheads pressed together and whispering even though they are alone in the house.

It's not ideal but Amy likes the feel of her foot brushing against Rory's ankle under the covers, and she loves drifting off and awaking with soft daylight under her eyelids and her hand resting peacefully behind Rory's ear, fingers curled in his hair while he sleeps, and how he smells like a boy, but familiar, and Amy loves that, she feels completely safe here.

Then there's the slow, sharp silence at breakfast, the way he looks at her as if he wanted to ask her something, his eyes follow her hand as she takes a spoonful of cereal into her mouth. Amy is sure he is about to ask her to be his girlfriend or something equally ridiculous (he is, actually, but he decides against it, or at least decides to postpone it) and Amy knows she can't say yes, _it's not ridiculous_ but she can't, she's fucked this up, sure she has, but that's better than letting herself get caught up in this and then having Rory disappear because nobody every stays, they all leave.

*

 **red light indicates the doors are secure**

He asks her out.

She says no.

( _Don't be daft._ )

 **you could have it so much better**

Everybody kind of supposes that she and Jeff would hook up eventually – because this is a (very) small town and people like to talk about this sort of thing and once Jeff got over puberty and spots on his face and general awkwardness (which accounts to why, even now, he is almost completely hopeless with girls) he suddenly _became hot_ and though Amy has (has always had) a reputation for being weird and kind of a no-good-news girl nobody argues her prettiness and pretty people gravitate towards each other (or so small town gossipers believe) and Jeff and Amy are both pretty so...

What no one ever expected was _Rory and Amy_ ; not as the permanent, the good gamble thing.

And everybody would have lost that bet, of course.

(Except Amy – she put her money on the good horse a long time ago, even though she finds it hard to admit it)

*

 **be gentle with me**

He wants to become a doctor but of course he also wants to help out in his house, money-wise, as soon as he can; and medicine would mean spending so much time studying and in another town and away from Amy which is not how you make an important decision about your future and it's not how Rory does it but in the back of his mind that was always going to be a factor.

The first pair of scrubs he is given are, predictably, the wrong size.

`That looks so sexy, Mister Nurse Man,´ Amy says when he shows her, locked in his room one morning.

`Really?´

`Not really.´

Amy laughs but she puts her hands on his hips and with a smile that hopes to be much more sophisticated than it actually is she hooks her thumbs on the waistband of Rory's green pants. She does that – she puts him down with words more often than not and then she does something that contradicts herself.

`Am-´ he tries to protest because it's plain daylight and his gran is downstairs watching _Cash In The Attic_ and Rory thinks he has locked the door but maybe he hasn't and –

But her name (and all coherent thought) gets caught in his throat when he feels her breath on his skin.

They are not going out, she insists.

*

 **apply some pressure**

She pushes him away after this, actually.

`We were just fooling around, Rory. Don't be such a girl.´

And she does sleep with Jeff, eventually. Just once. (Which is why Rory is secretly relieved – though he feels guilty about it – when Jeff says he can't make it to the wedding. Nobody in the history of Leadworth has ever been to a year-of-self-discovery in South America but good for Jeff, he guesses, whatever makes him happy)

After that Rory tries dating one of the girls who work in his ward, Caroline – all year Amy has kept him at arms-length, as if he had done something wrong.

She bursts in on their three-month anniversary dinner (because Rory's door is always open to her, even when she _abuses the privilege_ \- is the expression Rory uses in their subsequent row) a little more than drunk and little more than jealous. Rory's date was understanding but the evening was ruined.

Caroline – who is not pretty as Amy but also not crazy as Amy so Rory's friends and family look upon the relationship with disguised relief – is nice and all but Rory is far too smart to ignore what is happening here; he breaks up with her without dramatics and people shake their heads because really, Rory didn't seem the kind of boy who goes dumping girls, what is this nonsense.

`Some times I think people in this town don't know me at all,´ he tells Amy; they are lying on the grass in the park, one Tuesday at three p.m., both of them with insane working hours, this time it feels like they are alone in the whole world, once more; Rory, Amy, the ducks and the trees.

Amy wants to tell him she feels like that all the time, that they are alone in the world, the two of them. Amy wants to tell him oh so many things.

`I _know_ people in this town don't know you at all,´ she says, her voice unusually soft and tender. `They have no idea...´

They lie closer. The ground under Rory's neck makes his skin itch, but he doesn't care. They hear the noise of a mother pushing a pram behind them and then it's gone, they are alone again. It's not even sunny, it's not even nice weather, but they are so content to be here.

(Amy will never feel like this with anybody else)

`I'm sorry I tried to ruin your date.´

`Oh. It's... fine.´

`I'm sorry I was a jerk.´

She is a mess without him. She knows this. (But this is not why she will choose him.)

`Let's do this, Amy.´

`What?´

`I know you are scared – I know you, okay? But let's do this.´

She doesn't know how to say _yes_.

`But you are... and I... and... Rory.´

`I love you,´ he says, and the way he says it frightens Amy more than anything else in the world; he says it as if thousands of year of human history and pop song lyrics and bad soap operas hadn't devaluated the meaning of those three words.

And he kisses her – so Amy doesn't have to say it back.

*

 **ghosts**

For the longest time, they don't talk about the Doctor, after he dashed in and out of Amy's life for a second time.

`He will come back. He came back, didn't he. Eventually.´

`Twelve years. He left you waiting –´

`I know, I know. But... it's...´

`I know.´

She is sitting on her bed, all folded up with her knees touching her chin.

`I'm here,´ Rory says very softly.

` _I know_.´

But it will still take her a long time to actually _know_ it.

*

 **waiting for my chance to come**

It starts as a joke. (Well, not really, but Rory doesn't Amy know that just yet.)

`I know what will cheer you up,´ he says.

They are eating apples and grapes on a bench outside the hospital. Rory's lunch break.

`I could ask you to marry me...´

And just as he predicted, Amy laughs in his face.

`Yeah, right,´ she says. `Good one, Rory. That has certainly cheered me up.´

`What is so funny about it?´

`It's just funny. I'm Amy – I don't do that stuff.´

`What stuff?´

`The marrying stuff, all that. I'm not that kind of girl,´ she shrugs.

`What would you say if I seriously asked you marry me, Amelia Pond?´

He doesn't have a ring.

Amy frowns.

`Of course I would say yes, you stupid.´

`Oh.´

They stay like that in silence, fruit in their palms, time stopped for a moment.

`Have we just...?´ Rory tries to ask.

`Shut up.´

Her cheeks flushed, Amy presses him against her and kisses him. He will be late for work.


End file.
